There are 15 numbered decks... well, 14, actually, because there is no deck 13. But there are decks above deck 15, they just can't be reached by elevator and aren't numbered, having names like "Kilimanjaro," with little boxes containing oxygen tanks you needed to wear if you want to climb the stairs and big signs with "beware of low flying aircraft" in reflective yellow paint. And, actually, maybe there are only 13 decks, because the elevators and stairs all ended on deck 2, making deck 1 the sort of place you can only get to in horror movies, like maybe the ship is powered by zombie rowers hidden one level down.
But, hey, we didn't even get to all the places to visit on the regular decks. The point is, the ship is big.
The Celebrity Equinox in Mykonos, Greece
 The outdoor pools aka "commoner's pools," which we didn't use since we had the "Aquaclass" pool. |
 The lawn on deck 15. Yes, it is real grass. Yes, they do have Croquet matches there. There's a bar on the back side, which we didn't use, preferring the smoking-free "Oceanview Cafe" bar one deck lower down. |
 The Coffee and Tea lounge, specializing in ... well, coffee and tea. This is next to the Gelato bar and the Crepe restaurant. |
 Kate on the back deck of the "Oceanview Cafe" were we liked to sit when the ship was pulling out. |
There were dozens of shops, seven or eight different restaurants, an equal number of bars and lounges, dance floors, theaters, sports clubs, fitness rooms, beauty salons, "aromatherapy" rooms, acupuncture rooms, three pools, Jacuzzis, the "lawn club" with real grass, libraries, internet access rooms, card and game rooms, a glass blowing studio ... well, the list goes on. A lot of stuff.
The staff was warm and helpful and very good at selling you stuff you didn't need. The spa attendants were all young women with dazzling white smiles, flat canvas shoes, while pants, blue blazers, and hair done up in a bun, making them seem like some kind of para-military cheerleading squad. Except for the acupuncturist, who was a serious, expressionless young oriental women in a white lab coat, who explained in flat, even tones how acupuncture could balance the body's chi, or energy, and help with almost any medical condition. As she held up one of the acupuncture needles for us to examine, she said calmly "the key to acupuncture...", then snapped her fingers, sending the needle flying across the room to pin a fly to the opposite wall and continuing without inflection, "is precision."
Well, OK, she didn't nail a fly to the wall, but you felt like she probably could have.
We had massages and teeth whitening, and Kate had manicures and pedicures and acupuncture sessions almost every day... the acupuncture was too scary for me, and I haven't even seen "Final Destination 5."
We ate most evenings in "Blu," one of the ship's specialty restaurants, and the one we could get into for free as "Aquaclass" passengers. The menu changed every day, the food was always good, the service was excellent, we almost always ended up at the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the ocean, and they had a few things that were always available, including the critically important creme brulee. We never ate in the main dinning room, which looked nice but was enormous and had shared tables, and only occasionally at the other specialty places, where were no better than Blu and required paying extra.
Our cabin was small but serviceable, and they left chocolates on the pillows each evening. We had a balcony but ended up not using it much, because our neighbors liked to have visitors come over and hang out on their balcony, with loud conversations about things they clearly thought were hysterical or fascinating but usually centered around the weather or how hairy someone's big toe was getting.
The two nights we didn't pull into a port were black tie nights; you had to wear a tux or a suit. I bought a tux for the trip, and those nights are probably the only two times I'll ever wear it. And it seems kind of silly, but so did the Senior Prom until you got there, and everyone is dressed to the hilt; then it feels like you are all part of a more glamorous, interesting life. I avoided saying "the name is Bond. James Bond," which I consider a win.
 Dinner in "Blu" |
 Our Cabin |
 The Celebrity Equinox from the stern |
Black Tie Night
Turkey
Our first stop after Athens was Turkey; we ported in Kuşadas, which I think roughly translates as "the place birds poop" or something like that. We had a tour guide who told us something about an island with a lot of birds on it, at least, along with a lot of other facts that seemed interesting while he was telling them and which, of course, I couldn't remember five minutes later.Turkey was a very pleasant surprise. No camels, no turbans, no flute playing snake charmers with cobras rising out of woven straw baskets, no bazaars selling oil lamps. Just a fairly modern city, a well educated populace (Turkey has mandatory education through high school), and, of course, the ever-present McDonalds. We spent a little time there later in the day, but early in the morning we were on a tour bus (#29) headed into the interior of Turkey.
 The island with the causeway just above the second ship is the famous bird island that gives Kuşadas it's name. But there are no birds there anymore. |
 Downtown LA? You'd think so. But no, that's McDonalds with the famous "Big MaKabob" |
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house and the Pope visited it... I'm not sure he said anything, just visiting appears to be enough for the Pope-ly seal of authenticity... and there you go, it's a tourist site. One of the tour directors on the ship said, with heartwarming sincerity, that the spiritual energy surround the house was amazing. The tour guide told us how a raging forest fire burned it's way all the way to the house, then just went out, a miracle. We were given small red clay water bottles to fill from the faucets coming out of the stone wall beneath the house. Holy water from a spigot; it doesn't get any more convenient than that. I asked the tour guide if we were going to see spiritual energy raise people into the air, like the Rapture. He said no, but occasionally you'd see some wise ass get a divinely inspired stick upside the head. I decided to keep my opinions to myself. |
Ephesus was amazing.
It started slow, with the tour guide making stuff up about the piles of bricks and shards of marble lying around ("This was a graveyard they converted to a bowling alley; over here, you see the remains of the famous aqueduct water park..."). But not too far in, you started to see more interesting things; an amphitheater, the remains of a temple with partially reconstructed statues of the gods, an archway where they were painstakingly rebuilding the walls around it. And a mix of cultures, Greek gods mixed in with Roman script, Christian symbols, different building styles and materials. And it went on, and on, and on. And, as it turns out, only about 15% of the ruins have actually been excavated at this point.
Below, you see another one of the hundreds of columned streets that made up Ephesus. This one lead to the harbor, which is five miles inland today. Silt filled the area, bring not only economic ruin, but mosquitos and disease as well, leading to the city being abandoned. It used to be the fourth largest city in the world in it's day, and was the site of the Temple Of Artemis, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world (which means, like the Colossus, that there's an empty field that someone thinks something that was described by someone else as "pretty freakin' spectacular" two thousand years ago once stood, probably because of a vision by a dying nun in Germany).
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Damn.
But, all things considered, they were polite, the deal didn't have any nickel and diming over shipping, or taxes, or anything like that, and it is a pretty spectacular rug and reminder of the trip. Here is a link to other photos of Turkey.
Capri
 This probably doesn't look that exciting until you realize there's less than two inches between these buses, we're travelling at 60 Kilometers Per Hour, and there's a 2000 foot cliff to our other side. |
 Some of the limestone cliffs of Capri |
 Some of the very-vertical architecture of Capri |
 Bundled up against the cold |
Finale
If you missed the prior sections of "European Vacation" you can find section one here and section two here.
And here are a couple of shots of some of sunsets we saw off the back of the Equinox:
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